fears

“You Must Believe in Spring” is a piece that stemmed from a concept Mario Spinetti (the musical genius on vocals and keyboard here…) brought to me to bring to life with movement. It expresses what it’s like to feel alone and depressed, like there’s no way out, and then the complete opposite side of that coin – what it’s like to be around others who help you see the light. It’s amazing how being close to others and feeling supported can make all the difference in the world in terms of perspective.

There’s always a way out of darkness, but sometimes we just can’t see.

I’m so very grateful also to Rocco Contini who brought this vision to life with his videography talents. Collaboration is a beautiful thing! Thank you!!

I am collaborating with dear friend and vocalist extraordinaire, Mario Spinetti. He came to me with a concept for a dance film and here’s my work-in-progress that starts to bring his vision to life with movement.

I’m feeling a bit vulnerable and scared to share something that isn’t a finished product or performance, but alas, choosing to do as I preach and go towards my scary place rather than shy away from it!

Check out more gems from Mario here on Facebook. And I must mention, he is an extraordinary vocal coach – which is how I was blessed enough to meet him in the first place!

Politics exist everywhere. It doesn’t mean squat about your dancing. Roles, supposedly deserved, come and go un-danced. You work tirelessly and devote yourself fully, yet you watch in the wings while another beautiful dancer takes the lime light. You aren’t envious of their dancing. You are proud of the way you move and express yourself. You hold your art in confidence, but the results of the moment don’t quantify your efforts. And the only thing I mean here by results are the tangible advancements your choreographer grants you, weighed against your expectations. Amazing results are inevitable when you put your best effort behind your actions. You may work as hard as you deem possible, and it still may not result in you center stage. The beautiful effort you put forth shines, but might not be exactly what a choreographer wants to highlight. None of this is a reflection of your value, but man it can feel like it. How do you not fall down the slippery slope of questioning your own dancing when the choreographer doing the choosing isn’t granting you the recognition you desire? The challenge posed to you is to not need the recognition, and not feel less than or second-rate. Done. Let’s do this. How?!

I start by saying the obvious. I love dancing with Parsons Dance, and it is one of my dreams come true. On the inside of that dream, I deal with not getting the roles I want – an issue that can lie at the heart of any job. It is not that I don’t want my dear friend to have that celebrated experience on stage, but it’s the aching desire to feel value from my determination, to have an outsider put a pretty little A+ on my dancing – pathetic, but true. I thank human nature. Hell, as a kid all I wanted in my beautifully simple life was to have Mom and Dad tote me around, kiss me, and applaud ad nauseam at my perfected, extremely fancy leg kick with a twirl and split finish. Now, at 28, my inner child still cries for attention and validation in moments of weakness. My poor and pathetic ego wants to get what I want at all times, to be the star, regardless if that star role contains moves and a persona that is even uniquely me. Despite if I know the choreography more intimately than another (again, an unnecessary and useless comparison), my commitments do not always lead me to performing the part. Worse yet, when my ego get’s bruised, it affects my dancing. It distracts me. It forces half of my energy to go towards keeping my head afloat rather than all my energy being devoted to the movement.

A few months ago, having been in this respected company for 3.5 years, I found myself upset in the studio during rehearsal; not as much from not getting a part, but for feeling misunderstood. My inner child was crying, “Look at me! I know this dance! Don’t I look lovely! Don’t you love how I am rond de jambing my leg with such pizazz! What? Do you like her rond de jambe better?! Look how hard I’m working!” Logic does not reign in my brain during times of frustration. If it did, I would kindly and obviously remind myself, “Just because I know all the dance moves, it does not mean that those are the dance moves truly meant for me.” Followed by, “You are a beautiful person and dancer, and not getting this role has nothing to do with the level of respect and value you hold, in the company and beyond.” Instead, my clear judgement left the room, and my emotions whined and paraded around in my head and heart. It took a walk outside during lunch, a chat with one of my beloved Parsons family members, and a severe push to get a sweat going, to leave the thoughts outside and thrive for the rest of the day. It was the disconnect between my dedication and the “results” that brought about the treacherous slope of defeat which lead to the ultimate death trap of questioning – questioning my artistic value.

Oh god, I typed it and at the moment I wish I could erase it from my screen and soul simultaneously. I want to demand that I never question my artistic merits. I want to demand that I always hold my self in high value. Yet there are trying moments, that muffle these well-known facts-of-self down to a muted scream in my gut.

My value as a person and artist is not a wavering subject. Value can only be granted to myself, from myself, and is never anyone else’s responsibility to deliver to me.

How often do you let decisions made from the choreographer in the front of the room influence how you feel about yourself? The truth: sometimes your artistic and personal sensibilities are not necessarily in alignment with the preferences of the choreographer and their work of the moment, despite their appreciation and respect of you. There will be rehearsals when you feel a complete connection between yourself and your choreographer, and there will be times when you fight to get that deep connection back. Dancing for a company is a business too. A business full of people who have varying sensibilities of what they like and desire. A business filled with pleasing not only individual dancers, but board members, booking agents, executive directors, the list goes on. You have no idea why a choreographer makes the decisions they do. Choreographers are people. People who are predisposed to particular people’s movement styles based on their own history, mindset, and tendencies. It may be their preference, it may be someone else’s, it may be random. Again, someone else’s decisions cannot effect your self-worth. Not just that it shouldn’t. It actually is completely unrelated.

To unruffle my feathers in times of distress, hopping in the studio, taking an open class I know I enjoy, or even trying a new class – dancing material I will never perform after those 2 hours – has from time to time, been a lovely reminder of why I do what I do. There is nothing political or expected about open class. I can go in, dance my heart out, and not give a crap if anyone else in the room is going to like me, I mean, my dancing (a shockingly, occasionally hard thing to separate). The frightening bottom line about taking class for you alone? You’ll probably dance better, with complete abandon, as you always should, and get recognized for it because you could care less for the recognition. Politics in the studio of a job we work for can make us lose that freedom. So get it back somewhere else. Refresh your memory of the feeling. Get your confidence boost and lighthearted spirit back and then kick ass back at “work.”

You are the one thing you can control and maintain. Only you, yourself, can continuously cultivate a sense of home, comfort, sanity, and integrity. When others rock your boat, break your ship, they’ve cracked into your vulnerabilities. They are not welcome. Working hard and having your passion lead all your intentions will never set you astray. You will see results. You will not care about roles or jobs gained or lost. You will become a better artist, person, and technician. More importantly, your confidence and self-value will be unwavering and take you places you could never conceive possible, and most gloriously, they will be uniquely and entirely yours.

Performances are the heightened, amplified moments your family, friends, colleagues, directors, critics, lovers, and complete strangers get to come see what you work so hard on during rehearsals. With Parsons Dance, our two weeks at the Joyce Theater is the one time a year I am guaranteed to perform for my New York family. It’s my moment to show off to the ones who hear I’m supposedly a talented dancer but rudely only give me one shot every 365 days to see what I truly do and of course, have their speculations rightly confirmed. It serves as my annual marker to see where I’ve come as a performer and as an opportunity to set a fresh intention of what I wish to accomplish out of two weeks of constant performing.

With the weight of significant performances, nerves and performance pressures can lurk, ready to snap precious and peacefully cherished dance moves without consent. Nerves, not all bad at all, come in endless distracting flavors. Sometimes the nervous belly pays a visit at half hour to curtain because you want to nail all your dance steps with the utmost artistic finesse. Sometimes a surge of excitement blesses you from someone new to modern dance coming to watch for the first time because you’ve introduced them to your world. Sometimes it’s a wave of longing because it’s the last time on stage in a certain work with the same special cast. And sometimes it’s an absolute dire sensitivity to your aching body you must be mindful of to survive the show without a hitch. How do you prep the mind for the nerves and focus your energy appropriately to make for the best show for those who come for proof, and more importantly, yourself, regardless of circumstances? And “regardless of circumstances” is the kicker here because during strenuous and lengthy performance series, you don’t always feel your freshest every day, regardless of how well you wish to feel, and regardless if Baryshnikov decides to make an appearance in the house. (Hi Mikhail. Yes, please come tomorrow. I believe my left hamstring will be a bit stronger and I’ll be on my leg for you. Thanks. Kisses.) Physical and mental states vary as your whole being is thrown to master the test of endurance from daily performances. This means making those seemingly impossible shows, completely possible and even surprisingly enjoyable be it sprained ankles, colds, fevers, tendentious, fatigue, and soreness. (Game on!)

So now that you’re completely curious for the reveal of my personal goals for this past Joyce, straight from my journal – may I have the drum roll please? Ahem…. To be fearless and selfless through generous performances. To not fear the unknown of live performance, but to relish in it. To be absent from judgmental thoughts. To get lost and surrender to the moments deeper than I have previously by giving everything and expecting nothing.

A funny request, considering the chain of fun-filled events that happened within the first few hours of moving into the Joyce. (Ahh, here come those lovely circumstances!)

Roughly three hours before curtain, as we were about to start our press call for opening night, I rolled over my already-slightly-bummed left ankle which was sprained a few weeks earlier. Bravo, Christina. I hobbled off stage, gracefully let out a few select curse words, iced my ankle, and let a tear or two stream down my cheek due not as much from sadness but from the utter rage of this hideous timing. I was furious. And when I’m angry (or tired, hungry, abundantly happy, you name it…), I cry. I had so much to look forward to with these shows and had extensively prepared my mind and body for this hefty work load – the pieces were well-rehearsed, I had sufficient sleep, my home life was organized and armed with epsom salt, stretching toys, candles, and vitamin drinks to accommodate crazy performance life. Yet It simply didn’t matter how prepared I was, because, pardon my french, shit happens. I wanted to whine like a baby, and I gave myself about 5 minutes to whimper and feel bad for myself in the dressing room until I held it together and took the thankfully pitiful-sized injury and turned it into a blessing. There was a lesson to be learned if I could quiet my temper tantrum and listen. Justin Flores, a healing God here on earth, came to save the day and graced me with my first session of acupuncture and did some additional body work to get the minimal swelling that creeped in, down as much as possible; he had my ankle moving at more or less full capacity before showtime. This forced me into hyper-conscious mode. This opening night show could not be about blowing it out and pushing beyond my means. I had no choice but to be completely thoughtful with each step, each descent from a lift, each relevé. I hadn’t thought about my ankle much since I over-stretched the ligament initially, and this sudden and gratefully only minor glitch reminded me how fragile bodies are, how much proper strengthening of weaknesses are completely mandatory, and how completely lucky I am able to move as freely as I do. I headed into this first show, with any opening night jitters knocked cold right out of me, and an unwavering focus protecting my body. It was absolutely imperative to concentrate my attention, not just a task I casually handpicked for a fresh perspective, because I had to guarantee myself and my dance family a minimum of two weeks of performances.

Oddly enough, I relished in the restriction. Taking the performance stride by stride opened a world of time and calmness.

Between moves and counts lie opportunities to make choices. Music and movement may be swift, but there is a quiet place in the mind that can allow for space between those notes to breathe, pace yourself, and make artistic choices. Nerves are sequestered under intense focus of a task (one way to calm down, check!). Furthermore, any fear of screwing up a dance step dissipates when you give yourself the permission to make a mess (not striving for perfection, check!). A successful performance for me on opening night with a sprained ankle, was simply getting through the show without having to play gimpy in desperation for a wing.

And just as one ailment heals, ankle feeling stronger, another one strikes. Week two brought a battle with a fever and an unfortunate cold that I wearily won. Lesson I learned here? Whenever you are having the most significant performances, your body is put under intense rigors and inevitably unravels. What makes you special is when you deliver a brilliant performance regardless of the circumstances, because those circumstances will be there. How can you preserve and deliver your best when you may feel your most compromised? How many dancers grin and bear it through tendentious, tears, foot splits, and colds? Regardless of what you got, we all got something. The unfortunate happens, but it also happens for a reason. It’s not unfortunate at all. It is a gift; a blessing to pay attention on a deeper level and allow mental focus to resonate beautifully through your physical being.

And while attempting to get a grip on nerves and remain cool, calm, and collected under daunting circumstances, it also helps to redefine performances, put them in perspective, and decide what makes them glorious; something I love to remind myself of in the quiet of the wings before showtime.

First off, no one in the world can do the pieces you are about to perform (thank you Liz Koeppen!); not critics, other dancers, and thank-god, not your brother or boyfriend. The perspective as an audience member includes positive thoughts. (Not once have I sat in the theatre, hoping the performers would fall flat on their face or tumble from a lift with a partner.) All the outside can see is the final product. Not what you should be doing or could have done, but what you are presently doing, and they are on your team each step of the way. They came to have fun and be entertained, so p.s., kick back and have a good time out there!

Next, no two performances will ever be alike so there is no point in doing the comparison from night to night or agonizing over a misstep here or a wobble there. Fretting doesn’t happen nearly as readily in the studio, where the liberty to make mistakes, laugh them off, and carry on care-free reigns. The stage can be known as the place where the hard work gets hidden, and ideally the elating product gets displayed without a drag. Why that pressure? Performances are another place you get to experiment and try something new. All performances, studio and stage the same, are just another influencing experience. When you reflect upon your career, you will not remember the details of specific moments as much as you will remember how you felt doing it, and those moments regardless of where they took place, when you felt particularly transformed, moved. The beauty in dance is its replication of life. LIfe is full of mistakes, and boy do people love to see someone win a struggle. Who doesn’t get a thrill watching that “perfect” prima ballerina fight for that extra turn with a sparkle in her eye of sheer will and determination? On the other hand, there is nothing worse than the eye of defeat in the spirit who lets the pressures get the best of them and lets one mishap run them into the ground for the remainder of the show. When dance bloopers happen you should be in a state light-hearted enough to drop it, rather than wallow and crumble in its replay in your mind.

What makes for a stunning performance is the one not necessarily flawless, but gutsy and honest. The dancer fearful of making a mistake is not going to be interesting or worthwhile to watch. The dancer fearful to make a mistake is the only one who will be sure to fail. You cannot fail at dance (or anything really), so get the fear of screwing up a lousy dance step out of your head. It’s a dance move for crying out loud, not brain surgery. And what about all those millions of steps you do right that you conveniently forget about as you grieve over your sickled disaster of a foot in one arabesque? Once you put that fear aside, there is a whole other layer of dancing to reach and master. (But it wouldn’t kill you to put a little effort into that biscuit you called a foot the night prior, before you give it a second go-round!)

Lastly, performing doesn’t mean you throw every ounce of your energy into every step. Every ounce of your thought and focus, yes. However, when we vomit sheer force and fire over everything all the time it can over-power and make for jagged steps and frenetic connections. Breathe. Take a second. Look at your partner. No, really look. See. And above all listen. Listen so you can learn. If you are doing all the talking in your mind with busy thoughts, you cannot listen to the music or your partner, or the group’s connection, or your sensations. So make a vow to listen so you can learn and adapt to each circumstance live performances throws your way. I guarantee it will throw you a ton of fun ones.

I’ll leave you with the majority of mantras I used while at the Joyce. I must always take a few moments to myself on the stage to check in and see where my energy is at, calm myself down, be grateful I can do what I do with a functional and able body, and focus on what I want to gain from the performance ahead, filling my thoughts with words that bring me peace and make me feel I don’t have the world to lift on my shoulders. Here it goes!

“Surrender everything” -Me

“Save 7% for yourselves.” -Kate Skarpetowska

“Engage, Embrace, Enjoy.” -Dove, yes that would be some brilliant chocolate!

“Those who bring sunshine to others cannot help but keep it from themselves.” -Dove

“You don’t have the luxury of negative thought.” -Christina Applegate

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” -Franklin Roosevelt

“Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.” -Jack Lemmon

I wish I could say I wasn’t plagued by the upsetting dancer-with-eating-disorder cliché, but unfortunately life decided to teach me a lesson instead. (Don’t you just love that?) My struggle reared its ugly head while in the middle of my college career, but its origins started way before then when I would nitpick more than just my technique in the mirror as a dance-crazed teenager. Perfection was what I was after, and I thought I found the surest path to get an extra inch closer. In reality, those shedded inches were traded for self-deprivation, not only of my physical being, but of my inner pride. Quite the shame. Here’s my story, to help abate yours or nip it in your perfect size tush before the seed is even planted.

As a type-A girl who strives for perfection I took control over one more element in my life to achieve a skewed version of greater success. In entire honesty, I never felt I was restraining myself from food. I never felt I was even trying “that” hard to lose weight. My goal was to get into good shape before my next semester at college, and to me, good shape didn’t exactly refer to stamina or strength as much as it did to appearing more “dancerly.” In the summer months prior to my junior year at Marymount Manhattan College, I was enrolled in a summer course in nutrition. The class opened up my mind to a better, healthier diet, but, go figure, I took those lessons to the extreme. I started actively reading labels for more wholesome ingredients and became tediously aware of serving sizes. All positive health improvements, but only when followed with an air of casual knowledge rather than intense absolutes.

Upon my return to Marymount, teachers took note of my more slender figure. “Christina you look so thin, don’t lose any more weight please.” Being told I was thin was a compliment to me. It brought a devilish smile to my face when someone acknowledged my deteriorating figure. While I didn’t actively change my newfound eating habits, I continued to slowly lose more weight. In my head I just thought I was maintaining the slender figure I had proudly achieved. However, instead I was wasting away and achieving the not-so-sexy skin and bones look. Let’s set the record straight – I was extremely thin, too thin, by anyone’s standards. Probably around 100 pound on my medium-build, 5’5 frame. Yet it remained easy for me to see someone with a more severe case of anorexia as sickly; where their bones were all you saw protruding harshly at rigid angles to form a horrid semblance of a natural figure. Can you cry, “Denial?” I was convinced there was nothing wrong with my body, that I didn’t have any disorder, and my pitifully constrained dinners were what someone who performed with their body should have been eating. I wonder, scared to think how far away I was from this extremeness. Probably not as far off as I thought; my mental delusion was on par for diving into the deep end.

I stopped listening to my body’s gauge of hunger and analyzed my meals as if it was possible for them to be graded. It was the realization I really ate at least 4 servings of hummus and crackers in a sitting without hesitation, eagerly going back for seconds, that spawned the desire to shift some habits. Additionally, I would try not to eat too close to bed time; possibly allowing myself to indulge in some carrots or some other veggie if I was ravenous and felt like I couldn’t make it through the night. (Couldn’t make it?! All I was doing was sleeping, but I obviously put myself on such an impossible regimen.) It was valid to strive for diversity and nutrients in my diet, but it was critical to ingest the calories I as a dancer burned during the day to be prepared for the physical work required. Any time I absent-mindedly stuffed my face with trail mix or some other pathetic “bird-like” semblance of a meal, guilt ensued. Then I would try to compensate at the next meal, to ease the guilt away. How sad to be so pre-occupied with the cyclical thoughts of food, eating, and guilt when there were so many other more productive, positive, care-free thoughts to be had. I was taking my own life away from myself when I thought I was taking control of it.

The most tragic part? I felt great. What more do you need to continue with a downward spiral? I felt on top of my dance game, when I was truly at the bottom. I no longer had to hop, wiggle, and squat my way into my skinny jeans fresh out of the wash, and the thought of “Do I look fat in this?” was relieved from my concerns because I was aware I was thin, just not aware I was too thin. This was the kicker; the fact that I knew I was skinny allowed me to take class in a freer state of mind and ride the wave of my deformed, yet positive view of my body. I would be in my pink tights and proud to stand in an arabesque facing entirely profile to the mirror. I didn’t have one thought of, “Ugh, that low belly and thigh are a bit unfortunate.” Perfect! I was free to think about sailing around effortlessly in a promenade, luxuriating in my épaulement, and smoothly accentuating whatever turnout I could muster with a sense of hard-earned contentment. To top it off, I didn’t get my period for 9 months. While I knew in the back of my mind this was bad, I would be lying if I didn’t say it was glorious to be cramp and bloat free. (To be bloated at 100 pounds seems like an impossible feat.) I wish I could have added crabby to the list, but while I don’t particularly recall feeling temperamental while in this fragile state, I cannot imagine a body without enough fuel fostering a peaceful mind.

This entire time, I thought I was doing good for myself – caring for my instrument and being performance ready. What made me come to the realization I was off my rocker? My parents were scared for me and were near tears when they came to see me perform. They told me they were going to get me help and that I needed to put on weight. Seeing their urgency about an issue I thought didn’t exist, especially to warrant their extreme reaction, made me reconsider. I also honestly knew in my gut not getting my period was my body’s way of shutting down and not functioning as a woman’s should. Gratefully, the intervention was something I was willing to accept. I did have concern for my optimal health and the repercussions of losing bone density and being at risk of injury, potentially greatly halting my dancing career all together, horribly frightened me. Almost as much as (heaven forbid!) putting on some weight.

Gradually seeing the poundage creep on to my scrawny frame and maintaining a sense of self-pride was the most challenging aspect of the struggle. Losing the weight and controlling my appetite was easy. Five extra pounds, on the other hand, felt like I was wearing a balloon suit while doing pliés at the barré. One of the hardest things for me was to get accustomed to having boobs again. And by boobs, I am referring to my lovely A-cup chest. Having these mounds of excess flesh with a mind of their own attached smack in the front of my body was hard to grapple with while I stuffed them into the same leotard that once housed essentially just my nipples. A woman with a chest didn’t exactly measure up to this fantastical, adolescent dancer image I conjured and idolized, making my breasts a source of agony and symbolized me being out of shape rather than simply a beautiful woman.

Along my road to recovery, I became heavier than I was before I was sick. I intuitively felt I would need to go further in the opposite direction, before I could balance myself and feel at my healthiest. I let this new heavier body, limit my dancing. It disabled me because I didn’t feel prideful. It was a distraction that took me out of the work and into the mirror, concerned with the appearance of movement rather than the movement itself. The honest truth was my mind hadn’t made as much of a shift as I had believed and hoped; I still critically judged my body.

It is this mindset, so prevalent in dancers, that serves as the initiation to take drastic measures to senselessly curb food intake. So you need to cut the cycle in your thought process.

While muddling through this mental shift, I had a nauseating number of helpful conversations with my loving and patient mother, but I will never forget her once uttered words I vehemently disagreed with, “This might always be something you struggle with.” Excuse me? Always? Absolutely not. In a beautifully unpredictable world filled with ever evolving minds, nothing remains constant and people never cease to amaze with their capacity to change, adapt, and shift through the obstacles of life. If my mind has done a 180 degree turn around when it comes to everything from boyfriends, education, Freudian philosophies, tofu, and the Muppets, then there is absolutely no reason why a mental shift around proper eating habits isn’t possible. So the words “you might never like the way you look,” and “this will always be an issue” is the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever heard.

Now how do you start this shift?

I did see a therapist to help sort through the emotional turmoil and wrap my mind around the seriousness of the issue. It was helpful to acknowledge all the thoughts and relationships I had growing up that nurtured this twisted mentality. Honestly however, I didn’t feel our sessions were extremely insightful, and ultimately she encouraged me to fulfill the work I needed to do on myself. After a few weekly sessions, I let our time together go and kept an introspective gaze on my reoccurring thoughts.

I repeatedly recited to myself, “I have to fuel my body and this is me and it’s beautiful.” Various self-loving mantras under a protective veil of inner patience would immediately follow any critical and harshly guilty digs to myself. I reminded myself of the stunning power in a womanly figure and began to believe the asexual, prepubescent look was not all that and a bag of chips (let’s be real, it was no chips!). The clothes that once sagged on my wilted tushie had a field day with the comeback of my bubble butt. Me, on the other hand, initially gawked in the mirror, not so proudly and with a tinge of disgust, before my womanly sass and ass eventually became too much fun to not saunter and flaunt in the heyday of my early twenties.

Nevertheless, in the guts of this mental battle, life threw me tests. A phone call from a director, chatting about an upcoming season asked me if I planned on getting in shape for it. “You know. Slim down.” In complete defense mode, I claimed I didn’t need to and wasn’t willing to drop pounds and sacrifice my health. A proud moment for myself. The harsh reality – I wasn’t in my best shape. However, negotiating the thin line between healthy eating habits and obsessive, pre-occupied ones was too sensitive a debate for me to embark upon at the time.

Ahh! The challenge of being a performing artist.

While performing a visual art form, there is a need to be physically fit. Some companies (not all, and this should play a part when deciding where you work) are known for maintaining a physical aesthetic, and to ignore this fact would be unrealistic. The physical work done on a daily basis in the studio prepares our bodies for the strength, stamina, and flexibility necessary. Sometimes the work is enough to maintain a lean and strong physique, and other times as a performer you have to step up your game when an important show is coming up to make sure you feel your best.

Yes, you take class in front of a mirror all day long. Yes, you are there captiously sharpening your technique to extreme levels of excellence, and those critiques can sneakily enter your perception of your body. When are you done striving for the perfect figure and instead enjoy the one you’ve been blessed with? When the meticulous training and body affliction is all you focus on, you are not dancing. You are merely moving and fretting. You won’t get in better shape from worrying tediously at every moment. There has to come a point when the look of the body is disassociated from the movement, and the beauty of the dance take over.

Let go of compulsive premeditation about meals and issue yourself freedom and an open mind to thoughts of significance. Eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. Eat what makes your body feel good and function at its optimum. Or don’t, and then fully indulge and enjoy! Tacking on any guilt with eating something less than nutritious or eating too much of something is absurd. Food is pleasure and is to be savored. Being mad at oneself only perpetuates the ugly cycle of emotional eating. Don’t get upset at yourself. Laugh at its ridiculous reoccurrence, grant yourself patience without judgement, and let it go – no matter how long this lesson takes. To unleash your fullest capacity as an artist and simply as a happy person, navigating a health relationship with food and your body is a battle worth fighting.

Inspired by:
Rick Pitino, with Bill Reynolds
“Success is a Choice: Ten steps to overachieving in business and life”

….it’s been awhile since I’ve posted but here’s for some ruthless gumption!

My boyfriend (at the time….unfortunately a long story) lent me Rick Pitino’s “Success is a Choice” when I was craving a motivational, self-help if you will, read. I didn’t know what to expect from the former NY Knicks coach, but turned out his motivational mantras proved more than valid and helpful when applied in reference to dancing and working effectively within a dance company, which at times is absolutely a team or family. As I enter my second season with Parsons Dance, it is my upmost priority to make this season more fulfilling than the first. To take what challenged me, and make those weaknesses into my strengths, and to maximize my strengths to capitalize on what makes me special as a dancer. One aspect I wish to focus on here is performance pressure. As performers we’ve all had our moments where we feel these pressures seep into our bones, when the thought of convincingly moving those rattling bones becomes a much more daunting accomplishment than moments prior in rehearsal. In class and rehearsals, we can more easily tap into the glorious freedom of taking risks with movement and being fearless to make big mistakes and take a wipeout in lieu of finding where our physical limitations lie; these moments are exhilarating because we are pushing ourselves to our maximum. Performance can be exhilarating as well, when those limitations found by falling in the studio, can be trusted and so closely breached as we propel our body full throttle through space with the somewhat-calculated knowledge gained from hours of rehearsal. Most shocking however is, as a professional, this liberty of rehearsing specific works repeatedly to gain the confidence and full comprehension of how our bodies respond to each moment, simply doesn’t exist. Lack of funds, relates directly to the amount of rehearsal time allotted which relates directly to the feeling of preparedness prior to lights, costumes, and stage. I’ve been off-stage with only a single-hand of run-thrus under my belt, partner and all – “Slow Dance” this past summer is reminiscent – and forced to take this pressure and turn it into a positive influence and deliver a moving, elating experience for myself and the audience. Was I completely certain about every moment in the piece? No. We can never be entirely certain of a performance. It hasn’t happened yet; we don’t know what lies ahead. That’s life and what makes it exciting, unless we prefer to take this unknown and make it feel daunting instead. The choice is ours. Pressures exist, and thank god they do. They make us strive harder, longer, seeking finer details and additional nuances. If deadlines of performances and expectations of artist directors and fellow dancers didn’t exist and impose the feeling of wanting to be the best version of ourselves for them, we would be floating around in the blasé realm of mediocrity. And as far as I’m concerned, when we feel ourselves slipping into coasting mediocrity, which inevitably happens from time to time, we need to gratefully seize the opportunity to up the ante, set new goals, reach for higher sights.

So lets not feel negative pressure from the audience and those we wish to impress; that simply leads to stress and fear of failure – completely stifling. Failure is only an emotion we chose, not in definitive existence. Choosing to fear failure of certain moments within a piece, or not having the best performance, we are allowing those fears to take control unnecessarily. Instead lets use the pressure opportunity to see how far we can go. No two performances will ever be the same and this uncertainty is exciting.

So, easier said than done. How can we feel we have a grip on this pressure? For one thing, be confident in the moments we do know in a dance. Do our homework. Know every count, study a video, get into the studio and do some extra work to ease out the moments we don’t know as well or don’t feel as organic on our bodies. No rehearsal time with the rest of the company doesn’t mean we have to stop our work there and settle for not being as comfortable as we need to feel prior to a performance. Eliminate the uncertainties we have control over because other obstacles will always throw us for a loop in live performance – costume malfunction (Nasciemento skirt becoming untied and strings playfully doing another dance around my ankles), odd wings and back stage space (try an octagonal stage in FL with wings about two feet deep with 3 dancers hiding before a grand entrance), makeup running in our eyes (performing Envelope with my glasses pressed onto my face so hard my mascara runs and I’m forced to see out of one, barely open, blurry eye, which tends to happen on multiple occasions). Who says I’m talking from personal experience?? ; )

The performance is going to happen regardless. We choose to experience it trepidatiously or with an all-out vigor leaving no moment full expressed. Lets find trust in our work ethic and discipline. Performance is the prize for all those endless hours of rehearsal and class. So what if we’ve only rehearsal a dance 5 times before we perform it. We’ve had countless hours of dancing under our belt that prepares us to fly under this moment. So lets bring on the pressure and find out just what we are capable of; I bet we’ll surprise even ourselves.

Those you surround yourself with have such an impact on your actions and thoughts. My dear friend Kate Griffler serves as a constant motivating force. In between gigs and rehearsal processes, I need to keep close with friends who will plow through the disconnected feeling these NYC summer months create right alongside me. The summer months are notoriously slow for dance here – a tell-tale sign is always the lack of significant auditions. “Oh great they’re looking for dancers! Oh, there’s only three rehearsals… Oh, no pay. Lunch and video provided! How accommodating….” Sigh. A career in dance can readily feel like a hobby with someone’s mother packing your lunch box and your youthful studio video taping your culminating recital. All wonderful moments; just not when you’re trying to pay rent. For a positive spin, the slower dance months are a great opportunity to hone other aspect of your craft, otherwise neglected.

So these challenges aside and this positive spin in full force, Kate works so doggedly at her passion of dancing and choreographing. She never relinquishes when the harshness of the industry (measly paychecks, attempting to produce your own work with limited funds, advertising creatively in an over-saturated world to name a few more, with no intentions of dampening your spirit of course!) get the best of her.

Last week I had the privilege of finally seeing “Un Duet Noir,” a piece she has been working on throughout these past few months taking on various final versions throughout its development. Kate’s work displayed the dark emotions underlying an intimate relationship and the progression of emotions over time. She had a set consisting of a black cloak, a mailbox, and about one hundred letters. Kate’s props advanced and morphed with the development of the piece, taking on new meaning as the relationship between her and fellow dancer McCay Montz shifted and intensified; the cloak once something revered and cherished later masked and blinded her from reality, and the letters once scattered about the space later were packed into the mailbox.

Although Kate’s props were rather basic for our overly visual society to accept, I view sets as another layer of choreography added to an already challenging creative environment and generally react pitifully tame and steer clear despite audiences’ ready capacity for visual stimulation. Yes, now acknowledging this small fear, I will have to push myself to explore this with my next creative endeavor! (This blog is going to be the death of me, holding me accountable in writing!)

Why this reaction from myself? Props and video instantly add 1) an additional financial burden – even if its slight, 2) a physical burden – carrying them around town to various spaces and setting them up for each rehearsal, and 3) an artistic challenge – this being the most significant deterring factor for me because the prop/video needs to be integral to the piece and be used creatively throughout for it to be an enhancement. Instead of smelling fear, Kate finds it easier to create once a tangible scene has been set on the stage. Automatically now, the characters/dancers have objects to relate and respond to based on their own isms. It serves as an aid to generate movement rather than an additional burden. (One potential solution to conquering my hesitation!)

In similar vein to weaving sets compellingly into work, Kate also exemplified the intermingling between technically oriented movement and more theatrical/pedestrian gestures within her piece. This is also a direction I am interested in heading choreographically. My previous works in college and there after have been primarily movement based. The theatrical moments Kate utilized throughout “Un Duet Noir” were dispersed within dance-oriented sections so it never felt uncharacteristically jolting. How did she successfully strike this balance? My deductive reasoning after chatting and engaging in the work is her character development. The letters in the work are letters she wrote to those she had a complicated relationship with in her life. However, she not only wrote them but mailed them to herself and reread them as they were delivered back to her apartment. She wrote multiple letters to one person in varying tones and improvised different scenarios to question the reactions and motives of those she was investigating. When she was creating, she knew her characters inside and out. When solidifying the vocabulary she wasn’t setting choreography on dancers; she was embodying the gestures and body language of these depicted characters. This allowed for the dance movement to be an extension of the pedestrian language and exist in this fluid cohesion.

Anyone can string together a series of interesting (or not so interesting!) movement. A valid choreographer is capable of stringing these thoughts together and sculpting a scene in an inventive and intelligible pathway. This brings a weight to the work elevating it from moving limbs to moving art. One sign of a well-crafted piece is when you can sense the audience is with you. (How I hate the shuffling and coughing of an audience as a struggling performer!) At the very end of the work, there is a playful moment between Kate and McCay where he jabs a note on her chest and she just peers back at him, a glimmer of a smirk on her lips, holding the heir of utter understanding only two people with a deep history can share. There was a collective chuckle released from the audience who finally exhaled after traveling committedly through the dark drama prior.

“Un Duet Noir” is a deeply personal expression of a relationship in Kate’s life. (Ironically with this last performance, the relationship in actuality has somewhat withered away.) She plans on leaving the personal to dive into the play of random objects, imposing a connection externally rather than from a deeply internal origin for her next work.

“Un Duet Noir” was presented at The Rover on 41 Wooster Street: A new venue launching various dance artists. It also holds affordable rehearsal space ($10/hr) and classes – check it out!

Here’s Kate’s company website, 121 Dance Project, if your further interested in her work.